Study: Wearables To Invade Enterprise IT

That shiny Apple Watch on your wrist might be a good conversation starter now, but over the next few years wearable technology will become big business in the enterprise IT space, according to a new study from 451 Research.

The company’s new Mobility Research data report predicts that cellular Internet of Things (IoT) and machine-to-machine (M2M) connections will increase by nearly 4x from 2014 to 2019, with the number of connections going from 252 million to a staggering 908 million in a five-year period. Among these IoT and M2M devices, 451 expects to see significant growth in the number of connected vehicles and connected energy solutions along with an explosion of such as “pay as you go” solutions in the market, according to the company.

There are several factors that ultimately will allow wearables to break through the consumer tech glass ceiling and reach enterprise IT customers, including steadily decreasing hardware and bandwidth costs. The popularization of cloud-based middleware and data platforms also has made it easier to securely generate insights from machine data at scale, according to the study.

Most importantly, the amount of hype and excitement about both the business and personal opportunities that lie within the IoT/M2M market has created an overwhelming demand for more devices, said 451 Research.

“We continue to be bullish that ultimately the hype of IoT will be proven to be warranted back on business impact,” said Brian Partridge, Research vice president at 451, in a statement. “Over the forecast period we expect that M2M/IoT solution suppliers will find fertile ground in vertical markets such as retail and government that will adopt IoT/M2M to enable strategic digitization strategies such as smart cities and the use of digital signage, mobile point of sale, and connected kiosks to drive the transformation from brick and mortar to ‘click and mortar.’”

In terms of wearable devices, 451 recently published a new report, “Time for Work: Smart Watch App Development Turns to the Enterprise,” in which 39 percent of U.S. IT decision makers who either use or plan to use wearables said they will deploy solutions within the next six months. An additional 24 percent plan to deploy within the next 12 months.

A total of 81 percent of IT decision makers who said their companies plan to deploy wearables in the next six months prefer smart watches over other devices, quite possibly spurred by the growth of the Apple Watch, according to Ryan Martin, analyst at 451’s IoT and Wearable Technologies division.

“The release of Apple Watch has opened the flood gates governing wearables’ adoption,” said Martin. “But now that the river is running, it’s less about where it will end and more about where—and when—to start. We expect wearable technology to deliver a key interface and input into the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT).”    

The idea of wearables playing a larger role in the enterprise IT space is one shared by many major players in the industry; back in December, The VAR Guy listed the rise of enterprise wearables as one of his top predictions for 2015, and in March, Intel’s (INTC) Steve Holmes said he expects wearables to become a major influence on the IT space.

Earlier this month, device maker Xiaomi reported record sales of its Mi Band wearable after shipping more than 1 million units in Q1 2015, making the company the second biggest name in wearables behind Apple. Meanwhile, overall spending among companies investing in the Internet of Things is expected to increase to $1.7 trillion by 2020, up from 655.8 billion last year, according to IDC.